The eccentric founder of a Silicon Valley startup that became a giant in the field of antivirus software is being hunted in his adopted country of Belize, where police want to question him about the slaying of a neighbor over the weekend.

A police investigator in the Central American country told reporters that John McAfee, 67, is "a person of interest" in the slaying of fellow American expatriate Gregory Viant Faull. The 52-year-old Faull, originally from Florida, was found shot in the head Sunday morning when a housekeeper arrived at his beachfront home in San Pedro Town on the island of Ambergris Caye. McAfee founded McAfee Associates, one of the most widely known antivirus companies in Silicon Valley.

Area residents told the San Pedro Sun that Faull had been involved in a dispute with a neighbor, who was not identified by the newspaper. Other media reported that the feud was with his next-door neighbor and involved McAfee shooting guns on the beach and barking dogs.

A statement issued by Belize police said Faull was found lying faceup in a pool of blood. Police said there were no signs of forced entry.

A laptop computer and an iPhone were missing from the home, where Faull lived alone. A spent shell casing from a 9mm semiautomatic handgun was recovered, authorities said.

Joshua Davis, a reporter for Wired, reported Monday that he was contacted by McAfee, who said he was innocent of the killing and that he was in hiding in Belize. McAfee added that he fears that whoever shot Faull might actually have been trying to kill McAfee and made a mistake.

The murder investigation became the latest bizarre twist in the life of McAfee, whose name became synonymous with computer safety and security. At one time, his name was also on what is now the O.co Coliseum in Oakland.

He founded his namesake company in Santa Clara in 1989, but sold his stake a few years later and hasn't been involved with the antivirus software maker for almost two decades. Intel bought the company in 2010 for $7.79 billion and continues to market products using the McAfee brand.

McAfee, who at one point was living the high life pursuing interests in yoga and flying lightweight aircraft, had by 2009 squandered much of his fortune, estimated at $100 million, and was forced to sell his properties in Hawaii, New Mexico and Colorado.

Erratic behavior

The slaying caps months of erratic behavior by McAfee, according to the technology news website Gizmodo.

In April, Belize police raided his compound and found McAfee in the company of a 17-year-old girl, $20,000 in cash, a chemical lab and a cache of weapons, the website said. He was arrested on drug and weapons violations, but the charges were dropped.

In a statement posted online in May by a television station in Belize, McAfee said he was targeted by the country's Gang Suppression Unit, which he said falsely imprisoned him and "murdered my dog in cold blood."

"This is clearly a military dictatorship where people are allowed to go and harass citizens based on rumor alone and treat them as if they are guilty before any evidence whatsoever is obtained," McAfee wrote.

McAfee had been posting on a Russian-hosted message board in which he discussed purifying hallucinogenic bath salts, and police say he has been meeting with local gang leaders, Gizmodo reported.

McAfee was an engineer for Lockheed in the late '80s when he discovered some of the first computer viruses that were attacking the defense contractor's systems. His job was to counter those viruses.

In 1989, McAfee posted his VirusScan software on an Internet bulletin board and offered it as freeware, asking only for a donation from those who downloaded the code. After earning $5 million during that first year, McAfee founded his company and hired a few programmers.

The company went public that year, and McAfee later sold his stake in the company for about $100 million. McAfee Associates merged with Network General in 1997, adopting the name Network Associates, although it still marketed antivirus software under the McAfee name.

Network Associates owned the naming rights to what is now the O.co Coliseum for several years, and it was called the McAfee Coliseum from 2004 to 2008.

McAfee spokeswoman Kimberly Eichorn said the company had no comment about the latest news surrounding its founder or whether the brand would continue under his name.

Dwindling fortune

A New York Times story in 2009 reported that McAfee's personal fortune of $100 million had dwindled to about $4 million.

"The first time I met him in 2007, he was a guy who lived this incredible life," said freelance writer Jeff Wise of New York, who said he saw two sides to McAfee in different interviews. "He could talk for hours about what life was and about how he could live with integrity."

Wise first profiled McAfee for a travel magazine, detailing his love for flying ultralight aircraft. But Wise said he saw a "darker side" when he traveled to McAfee's home in Belize for a 2010 profile published by the business magazine Fast Company.

In an interview, Wise said the self-described practical joker had become "more and more eccentric." Wise also called McAfee a "compulsive liar."

"The last time I saw him, he scared me," Wise said in an interview. "By that time, he didn't have any more American friends. The only people who visited him were people who worked for him."